In the early 1000’s, the Christian church along with the pope began to build up an army to fight the muslin people to both eradicate their old religion, and to take back the ‘Holy land’, Jerusalem. This was the beginning of the ‘Holy War’. Many Christians thought that this was a just war and did not appose it because they believed that they were fighting for divine justice and take back what was rightfully there’s. The Crusades were a very dark period in Christian heritage, one that the church and all Christians tend to forget or pass over.
By looking through the past at Christian history we see just how much Christianity has shaped our past. Great wars have been fought Christianity and hundreds of thousands of people have died for Christianity. Without understanding Christian religion how one can possibly understand the stages of history that Christianity had such an impact over.
In Aboriginal society, religion is the fundamental element in every aspect of Aboriginal living. Through the beliefs of Aboriginal spirituality outsiders to the tribe can gain an understanding of the purpose, meaning and security of Aboriginal life and learn to respect and appreciate Aboriginal spirituality. The main foundation of aboriginal religious belief is the dreaming. The ‘Dreaming’ or the ‘Dreamtime’ is the story of the sacred ancestral totemic spirit beings that formed the creation of the land. The dreaming is a complicated concept, with multiple meanings, beliefs and practices that are not adequately conveyed by the English translation. In a sense the dreaming is an infinite spiritual cycle, more real than reality itself. What ever happens in the dream time establishes the values, symbols, customs and laws of Aboriginal society. The Dreaming has established the structures of Aboriginal society rules for social behavior and the ceremonies performed in order to ensure the continuity of life and the land in the Aboriginal custom. It has created laws to govern the community, cultural law and how people are required to behave in the community. The condition that is the Dreaming is met when people live according to the law they create custom, singing the songs, dancing the dances, telling the stories and painting the Songlines and the Dreaming.
When ones looks through Aboriginal history and heritage, religion and spirituality is the core, meaning and very existence of what is to be an Aboriginal. The people and the worship are one and without one there is no other.
Throughout history and beyond in the dark recesses of man’s earliest cultures, religion has always been a vital and pervasive feature of human life. To understand human history and human life it is necessary to understand religion….” (Ninian smart; 1969; pp.1)”
So what does this quote mean in the relation to Aboriginality and Christianity?
By looking back though history some things can never be omitted, and religion is one of these. Religion is the creation of the holistic drive that has created and shaped societies, human history and mankind itself. Many wars have been fought over it, many people have died for it and life itself would unimaginable without it. Religion is the vital key in understanding the human life continuation and change. By using Christianity and Aboriginal religion as examples regarding the validity of Smarts quote we see how very much life and religion tie together to make a whole, in the history of human life and society. By understanding religion we understand the many aspects of life.
Bibliography:
Dreamtime, 2008, W.H Stanner (Wikipedia Australia)
Introduction to religion,
History of Christianity, Feb 2008, various contributors,
The fragmentation for Christianity, July 2007, B.A Robinson,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7950/How-Jesus-and-Christianity-changed-the-World
Various hand out in class.
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